


...or it didn't happen

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dick Pics, Drunk Texting, M/M, Morning After, Pre-Relationship, Shameless Romantic Victor, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-30 02:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11453766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: The morning after the banquet, Yuuri wakes up to a hangover, a few fuzzy memories of the previous night and the realization that he sent some guy dickpics last night...and had gotten one back.Cyrillic guy seemed nice. Friendly. Somebody he might have wanted to hang out with, if things had been different.Yuuri hoped he hadn't pretended the guy was Victor Nikiforov or something stupid like that. When he got that drunk, all bets were off.





	...or it didn't happen

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the anonymous genius who thought of this (I'm sorry I don't remember the exact source any more) and of course to Indelicateink for looking it over. Remaining mistakes are my own.

Yuuri Katsuki woke up to a familiar ache in his head and a nasty taste in his mouth. Hangover. A bad one.

He'd had far too much to drink; not a surprise, considering. He'd failed before on the ice --he was pretty accustomed to failing--but this week had been a nightmare.

 _Just quit,_ the Russian punk had told him, and it seemed like a reasonable choice. He could go home. But if he went back home, Vicchan wouldn’t be there to welcome him...

He remembered the champagne, staying back at the edge of the room, too depressed and lost to even want to talk to Celestino.

 _Celestino._ Who'd probably had to drag him back to the room last night. He owed the man an apology. Multiple apologies. Maybe a fruit basket or something. 

The thought of food made his stomach kick. Not a fruit basket, at least not right now. 

His phone was dead, so he plugged it in before lurching to the bathroom. He didn't have to throw up, though the burning in his throat made him figure he'd already done that plenty. He really, really hoped he hadn't puked while he was still at the banquet. 

The shower helped. Words started forming in proper order in his mind. Celestino was probably printing their boarding passes and fussing over the final details and letting Yuuri sleep it off, because he was a better person than Yuuri was ever going to be. 

He got dressed and then turned on his phone. It buzzed with missed texts. Probably sympathy. He didn't want to face any of it. But Celestino might need him, so he looked them over anyway.

There was nothing from Celestino, at least not yet. His family, that Swiss skater--Christophe, that was it--and a number he didn't know. A couple of texts from the mystery number...

Wait. Not just texts. A photo.

...oh, _fuck._

There was a gentle knock at the door, and Yuuri shoved the phone into his pocket, feeling his face flushing crimson. "I'm up," he said, as Celestino came in.

"Do you want any food? Or are--"

"Nothing yet," he said, as another wave of queasiness came at the thought. "When do we have to leave? I can just grab some ginger ale at the airport."

His coach passed a hand over his hair, smoothing it down. "We've got a little time--I was going to wake you up if you hadn't done it on your own, and you're already dressed now. Are you packed?"

"I basically was last night," he said. "Before...before whatever I did at the banquet."

"I'm honestly not sure," he said. "I was a little distracted and before I knew what had happened, Josef was telling me I should drag you off the pole."

"...tell me I kept my clothes on." Forget quitting skating; he'd have to move to an obscure corner of--Antarctica, maybe? Or just find a quiet apartment with grocery delivery and never leave.

"They told me you were the life of the party," Celestino said. 

Yuuri put his face in his hands.

 

"Victor!" Yakov said. "Stop daydreaming, or we'll miss our flight!"

"Of course," Victor said. He put his phone back in his pocket, but his mind and body was still buzzing. Did Saint Petersburg State University have classes in Japanese? He could make time to--

_He was drunk. Maybe he doesn't even remember it._

_...when he touched me, it felt like--_

_It felt like light was coming into the room. Into me._

Yuri Plisetsky shoved at him as he passed by. "Old man, don't stare into space all day. Were you looking at those stupid pictures from the banquet again?"

"No," Victor said, because he wasn't. He had been looking at the photos he'd gotten _after_ the banquet. Completely different.

"Quit mooning around,” Yuri said. “I'm not missing this flight."

"Don't pretend you're in a hurry to get to practice," Victor grumbled.

"Shut up."

He must have had dance training, a lot of it. Victor remembered seeing his footwork before, in videos, and the way he’d moved--

If he closed his eyes, he could still feel Yuuri's hand on his face. He still hadn't gotten any texts this morning, but that didn't mean anything, after all. He might not even be up yet.

_My sleeping beauty._

 

Yuuri went through the list in his head.

First, he'd gotten drunk.

Second, he'd gotten drunk enough to hit on someone.

Third, he must have been reasonably successful, because he'd gotten someone's number. Probably someone Russian; the name in his address book was in Cyrillic. 

Someone either smart or persistent enough to put a Cyrillic name into his phone, and to feel confident enough that Yuuri would be able to figure out who he was in the morning.

Fourth, he'd then sent this Russian guy--and it had to be a guy, because of part five--pictures.

Dickpics, to be precise about it.

Fifth, the dickpicks must have been a hit, because he'd _gotten one back._

It was a pretty nice dick, whoever it belonged to. Hard to tell _(hard,_ his brain underlined, stupid brain) exactly how big it was, but it didn't seem small. The body it belonged to was nice, too, what he could see of it. 

What the hell had he _done?_

He'd thought the text from Christophe might help but it just added to the mystery: _Hope we'll dance again soon! ♥_ followed by a string of emoji. At least there wasn't an eggplant. At least he'd only sent the pictures to Mystery Cyrillic Guy. At least--

At least he hadn't put his face in the photos, though there was way too much of his body. No one would leak them to a gossip site, if anyone was even interested in naked photos of Katsuki Yuuri.

The other man must have been drunk too. Maybe he was just as confused as Yuuri was. Maybe he'd already deleted the pictures off his phone. Maybe he'd be really lucky and he hadn't saved Yuuri's name.

The best thing to do would be to forget about it completely. Then they’d just go on with their lives--

 _You're beautiful,_ Cyrillic guy had said. _I can't believe how graceful you are. I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention when you were on the ice._

A reporter was Yuuri's best guess. It would explain the Russian, and plenty of reporters were former skaters who'd kept in shape. Yuuri couldn't get that great an idea of the man's body, anyway; the photo was the kind of shot you took when you were horny and drunk off your ass. Even a journalist wasn't great at those.

 _Graceful._ That _had_ to have been someone drunk off their ass.

It was a nice dick. Cyrillic guy seemed nice. Friendly. Somebody he might have wanted to hang out with, if things had been different.

Yuuri hoped he hadn't pretended the guy was Victor Nikiforov or something stupid like that. When he got that drunk, all bets were off.

 

Yuuri hadn't sent any texts this morning.

Maybe he was embarrassed. They were almost strangers, after all. 

He looked at his screen again. Yuuri had sent three photos, all cast in the warm light of the hotel room. He could see Yuuri's warmth, the muscles in his chest and abs. His cock half-hard in his hand.

The hands that had touched him last night. That had made him feel--

It was like he'd been in a dark room, for so long that his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and someone had turned the lights on. He'd forgotten what colors looked like. What it was like to see brightness and shadow. What the sun felt like.

He’d spent an hour watching Katsuki Yuuri's old performances. He could see the dance background that he'd shown last night. His grace.

If he could have landed his jumps--

But he hadn't. Maybe that was why he'd asked Victor. _Be my coach._ Part of Victor had wanted to take him back to his room, back to Russia, never let him go. He'd never seriously thought about life beyond performing; he’d toyed around with the idea of coaching, but--

The last few years, he'd hardly thought about life at all.

"Yakov," he said. "What's the most important thing about being a coach?"

Yakov looked at him and sighed. "Patience," he finally said.

Victor could be patient. He patiently put his phone on airplane mode and vowed to not stress out about Katsuki Yuuri (that was the right way in Japanese, wasn't it?) until his flight landed.

 

Yuuri slept on the plane, and it cleared his mind somewhat. Enough that when he turned his phone back on he punched the unfamiliar words Cyrillic Guy had put in his phone into Google Translate. _Handsome puppy._

Yuuri let his head touch the back of the seat in front of him and closed his eyes. He was never getting drunk again. Maybe never drinking again at all. There probably wasn’t any alcohol in Antarctica anyway.

Yuuri's hopes that it would all be forgotten disappeared as his text messages came through. Handsome Puppy was checking in.

_How was your flight?_

He knew he shouldn't answer. He'd gotten drunk and probably thrown himself at this poor guy, and the fact that the guy was being nice back only meant he should back off. 

What kind of guy ended up texting a near-stranger the morning after and didn't just die of embarrassment like a normal person? 

_Someone as lonely as you are?_

Who was he kidding? He had nothing to lose any more, did he? He typed into the window. _All right. I mostly slept. Are you home yet?_

He didn't get to check his phone again until they were off the plane for the transfer. Logan was crowded, and it felt like the heat had been turned up too high. Yuuri got a sandwich at Potbelly; Celestino insisted he wasn't hungry, so Yuuri left him at the gate to babysit their bags.

_Came home and crashed. Now I’m starving._

Yuuri took a picture of his sandwich.

_No fair._

_Airport food. Don't feel too jealous._

_Can't be on your diet plan._

_No._ But if he retired, his diet plan wouldn't matter. _Where are you now?_

_Home with my dog._

Yuuri ignored the pain he felt when he read _dog._ This might be his chance. _Can I see?_

Yuuri finished his sandwich, tossed the wrapper in the trash, and after much debate settled for an iced coffee at Dunkin Donuts. He was halfway back to his gate when his phone buzzed again, and he waited until he was sitting down to look. It would probably just be a fuzzy image of snow or something; he had no faith in Handsome Puppy's selfie game.

The photo came through, and he stared at the screen.

 

Celestino did _not_ have a hangover. A hangover might have a cure. What he had was a case of jet lag, combined with frustration, with a giant dose of Yuuri Katsuki's self-loathing weighing on him. 

He wasn't a therapist. He wasn't...he wasn't very good at dealing with Yuuri when he got like this, and they both knew it. 

He'd given Yuuri some time to himself to eat, which might at least calm his nerves a little; neither of them were at their best on planes, and Yuuri’s stomach must have been painfully empty. Phichit, just back from his own trip to Thailand, had sent Celestino some encouragement, and had no doubt done his best to reassure Yuuri.

Celestino was increasingly convinced that years of doing his best simply wasn't good enough. Yuuri was so discouraged. Maybe they just weren’t the right fit, after all. Or--

Yuuri dropped down next to him and unlocked his phone. A few quiet moments passed.

Celestino felt the change before he heard it; Yuuri going rock-rigid at his side, then stuffing the back of his hand in his mouth and making a noise that was very close to a groan.

"Yuuri?"

Yuuri's voice, when it came, was low and tense. "You need to tell me everything you know about the banquet. _Everything."_

 

Yuuri turned his phone off until he got back to his apartment and could spill the truth to Phichit. "I don't remember," he said, handing the phone over with the last shot--Victor’s beaming face, next to a happy-looking Makkachin--displayed on the screen. "Any of it. I don't--it's _Victor."_ It had been Victor's words. Victor’s _dick._

Phichit took the phone and stared at it. His eyes were disconcertingly wide. "That's Victor, all right."

"Well, of course, you can see--" Yuuri realized to his horror that Phichit had started scrolling through his messages. "Don't look at _that_ one!"

Phichit leaned away, his eyes glued to the screen. "Oooh, is this one--this is nice! Very artistic angle. I had no idea you could aim the camera this well when you were that drunk."

Yuuri snatched the phone back and briefly considered beating Phichit with it. "Look, you were supposed to be giving me advice!"

"I'm too young to be giving you advice, you're like four years older than me!" Phichit smacked Yuuri in the arm, distracting him long enough to grab Yuuri’s phone again. "Just keep texting him back. It's Victor Nikiforov! Why _wouldn't_ you text him back?"

"It's--Phichit-kun, you’ve seen me drunk. I’m not...I’m not that person. He can’t possibly want to talk to me. Not really."

Phichit shrugged. His eyes were back on Yuuri’s phone screen. "You’re fun. And you are a good dancer. Whether you’re drunk or not."

"I don't even remember what I said to him. He called me enchanting! _Enchanting!"_

"He doesn't want you to quit," Phichit said, still scrolling through the messages. 

Yuuri didn't answer. 

"I don't want you to quit either," Phichit said.

"I know," Yuuri said.

"It's late," Phichit said. "Why don't you get some sleep? He's probably asleep by now anyway, it’s like four in the morning in Russia."

"Yeah," Yuuri said, and sighed.

"You're not going to sleep even if you try, huh?”

Yuuri shook his head.

Phichit handed him back his phone. "Wanna watch The Amazing Race? I saved it for you."

"Yeah," he said. "Sure."

 

Yuuri had been drunk. They'd both been drunk. Maybe he was just embarrassed.

Maybe he’d decided he wanted to pretend none of it had happened.

But he'd sent texts back yesterday. Maybe he was asleep?

Victor opened up his phone and did a search. It was 3 am in Detroit. _Anyone_ would have been asleep.

He put his coat on and took Makkachin for a walk. Makkachin was in a good mood, at least, happy to see him again. Victor had certainly missed the company.

He sent one more text, a picture of the morning light in St. Petersburg, Makkachin chasing snowballs in the sunlight. He hoped it looked friendly. Not too aggressive. Though that hadn’t seemed to matter at the banquet.

Katskui Yuuri had kept up with every dancer when he’d almost been too drunk to stand. 

Victor had been drunk too, but not drunk enough. Not drunk enough to take Yuuri back to his hotel room and push him into the mattress and kiss him wordless, senseless. 

Letting Chris take him back to his coach had been the right thing to do--he knew it had been, and if Yuuri was embarrassed _now,_ he never would have spoken to Victor again if they'd had sex--but....

He was half-hard thinking about it. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, thought about the cold air, his empty apartment, and that managed to ease the ache.

Detroit was too far away. It was hours before he could even hope for a text. He took Makkachin to the dog park. He kept hearing snatches of music in his head, something calling to him. He called his composer and left a message: _I've got an idea. I want a piece--no, two pieces, variations on a theme--on love. Eros and agape. For my short program. Call me?_

The dog park was quiet. Of course, it was a work day, for people who weren't professional figure skaters. There was a young woman he'd seen a few times before, a dog walker, with a tiny poodle, the same color as Makkachin. They nodded hello to each other.

His phone buzzed. He pulled it out, excitedly, and tried not to be disappointed when the text was from Chris. _Well?_

_He's sleeping. It's early in Detroit._

_Maybe he's dreaming about you._

Victor shoved his phone in his pocket and tried not to think about it.

 

"Yuuri," Phichit said in the morning. "Leo found them."

His head felt better, but the embarrassment hadn’t faded. "Found what?"

Phichit handed his phone over. "Just scroll."

The photos were--

Of him. At the banquet. Very, very drunk.

Yuuri groaned.

"You need to look through them," Phichit said. "There’s a whole set, I started you at the beginning.”

In the first photos he was breakdancing with the Russian punk, Plisetsky. Goofy, but not _that_ embarrassing. Not, at least, as embarrassing as the next set.

"Yuri Plisetsky had them. I don't know what Leo had to do to get them. He said Yuri owed him from Juniors...I didn't ask."

"Do we owe Leo now?" Pole dancing. With _Christophe Giacometti_ of all people. Why had he let Phichit talk him into that class? Sure it had helped his core strength, but he was in his _underwear._

"No, he owed me from last season--keep going. The last set, that's the set that you should see."

"I could have just skipped to them."

"You said you needed to know what happened at the banquet," Phichit said. "All of it. The last ones are just the most important."

Yuuri sighed. Phichit's memory was too good, that was--

Oh.

"Have you looked at them?"

"Yeah," Phichit said. "They're...they're kind of cute."

Victor was approaching _him,_ trying to copy his movements, and then he was pulled into the dance. In this one, Yuuri was pretending to be a bull while Victor played toreador. In this one--

His hand was on Victor's face, and Victor's arm had curled up to touch him. 

No wonder he'd kept texting. No wonder he'd slid his shorts off and sent Victor those photos. This wasn’t the icy, beautiful skater he’d spent half his life obsessed with. This was something--someone--human and awkward and real. They both looked happy. Yuuri couldn't remember the last time he'd looked that happy, and Victor--

Yuuri grabbed his own phone. "Phichit?"

"What?"

Yuuri opened up the photo of the three GPF medalists, gold, silver, bronze. "Look at Victor. Like, not because you're my friend. Just--look at his face."

Phichit took the phone. "...Okay?"

"Does he look happy?"

Phichit looked over at Yuuri. "What--I--" He held out his hand, and Yuuri handed his phone over so Phichit could look between the medal ceremony and the banquet. "No," he said, finally. "He's smiling, but it's not in his eyes...his free skate, he looked like this too--" He gestured at his laptop, over on his bed. "It wasn’t always like this, was it?"

Yuuri grabbed it. "I don’t think so. Look up his free skate from, um, Montreal. The one just before he cut his hair--"

"I'm on it," Phichit said. No one could be friends with Yuuri for as long as Phichit had and not be able to find that video.

"You're a great friend," Yuuri said.

"Yeah, I am," he said. "Okay, let's put them side by side--"

They looked. Yuuri spoke first. "How long do you think he's been miserable and no one's noticed? I thought I was his biggest fan, and--."

“I think you should keep talking to him.”

"I can't be--" Yuuri stumbled and tried to find the words. "I'm not who he thinks I am."

"He thinks you made him smile," Phichit said. "That's who you are."

 

"It needs some Spanish influence," Victor said. "Tango, maybe. Think of a matador and a bull, the dance between them."

"Someone dies when it's a matador and a bull," Sofia said dryly.

"That's the risk, though, isn't it? The romance of it all. The woman--maybe the man--is seduced, carried away. They know someone's heart will be broken, but they can't resist the game."

_Maybe it’ll be my heart. I'd almost forgotten I had it, and now--_

"Victor?"

"Yes?"

"What's going on? You're...you haven't been excited about your program like this in a while."

"I have an idea," he said. "I--just see what you can do with it, please?"

"Of course," she said. "I--I think it's got a lot of potential. It's just not like the skating you've been doing."

"No," Victor said. "That's exactly what I want. Remember when I used to surprise everyone? Write me a surprise."

"I'll do my best," Sofia said.

 

This was worse than getting ready for a performance. This was something that twisted hard in his gut, that hurt, that was all the worse for the pulse of hope that threaded through all the other emotions.

Yuuri swallowed.

"Breathe," Phichit called, from the refrigerator.

"I'm breathing!"

Phichit didn't say anything, but he didn't really need to. 

"Don't judge me," Yuuri said, because he'd stayed up with Phichit the last time he'd been dumped, getting fresh tissues and finding new funny animal videos to watch. When Phichit had finally fallen asleep on his shoulder, Yuuri's t-shirt had been soaked through.

"I'm not judging you. I'm just telling you to breathe."

"I'm breathing," Yuuri said sullenly. "I just don't know how to start."

"Send him a picture of the hamsters!"

 _That's stupid,_ Yuuri thought. But everything else was stupid too, so he took a picture of them and sent it. _Here are my roommate's hamsters. They're not as good as a dog, but we can't have dogs here._

"There," he said, collapsing back on his bed. "I sent the stupidest possible text."

"Good," Phichit said. "You ready to go to the rink?"

"No."

"Get moving."

 

Celestino wasn't as hard on him at practice as he probably should have been, maybe because of the hangover, maybe because Yuuri was so clearly shell-shocked from the past few days. When he went in the locker room to change, there were two new messages from Handsome Puppy--from _Victor._

 _They're really cute,_ the first one said. _I like hamsters but I’d be sad if I couldn’t have Makkachin with me._

The second one had come half an hour later. _I was worried you wouldn't text back. I know...you must have been pretty hung over._

This was the chance to bow out. To say _I don't remember it,_ or _that night was a mistake,_ and both those things would be true, and he'd be sad for a little while and--

He'd saved one photo from the banquet to his phone, the one where he dipped Victor, where they were in each other's arms, smiling, stupidly, simply happy.

 _I was pretty drunk,_ he wrote. _I'm sorry, I don't remember much. But it's nice talking to you._

He hesitated. Was that enough? Too much? 

He swallowed. Phichit was better at this stuff, but still. He held the phone out at arm's length, adjusted the angle. If he held the phone just right, he didn't look too bad. You could still see the effects of the binge eating, but it if he turned to the side it showed off the muscles in his back. 

Not all of him. A tease--not a tease. Maybe a promise. 

_I can’t do this._

_He said I was beautiful._

He took the picture and hit the send button.

The answer came back before he'd gotten in the shower. _I want to dance with you again. When we'll both remember it._

Yuuri closed his eyes, tight, and tried not to cry. He'd had the worst day of his _life_ two days ago. And now, Victor Nikiforov wanted to dance with him. Not Victor the idol, the larger-than-life guy he'd watched from afar his whole life. Victor the man, who took pictures of his dog chasing snowballs and who was so lonely he'd texted the guy who'd gotten smashed and thrown himself at him.

He blinked the tears back. He was being ridiculous. _Okay,_ he sent. 

_Worlds?_

_If I make it there._

_I have faith in you._

_Okay. Worlds._ He put his phone down and looked in the mirror. Vegetables, lean protein. Smart carbs. Trying to land his quad toe loop. He sighed. _Can I do this?_

He thought, again, of Victor Nikiforov touching his face.

What was soul-destroying terror compared to that?

 _Worlds,_ he thought, and headed for the showers.


End file.
